Father Mark Raper speaks out against the Church's handling of sexual abuse allegations

PM Archive - Tuesday, 1 July , 2003 18:10:00

Reporter: David Hardaker

MARK COLVIN: A leading figure in Australia's Roman Catholic Church is delivering an extraordinary mea culpa tonight. The Head of Australia's Jesuits, Father Mark Raper, has admitted that the Church has failed a man who was the victim of sexual abuse, 35 years ago.

Father Raper has also made some frank admissions about how his branch of the church conducts its legal defence. This senior Catholic figure has broken ranks to admit that the church uses blocking tactics in the hope of exhausting those who sue for compensation.

David Hardaker has this report.

DAVID HARDAKER: Lucien Leech-Larkin was fifteen-years old, a student at Saint Aloysius College in Sydney, when he met the man who almost destroyed his life. Colin Fearon, a science teacher at the school, sexually abused the young boy, but when his parents complained the teacher was believed and Lucien was forced to leave the school. Being abused, then not being believed damaged him for life.

LUCIEN LEECH-LARKIN: What they did to me, I suppose you could say Fearon broke my heart and they broke my mind, the Jesuits.

DAVID HARDAKER: For the next thirty years, Lucien Leech-Larkin stumbled through life until five years ago when out of the blue he discovered his old science teacher was wanted over child sex charges in New Zealand.

Soon Colin Fearon was also charged and committed for trial in Sydney. In the end Fearon was able to beat both sets of charges because he was too sick to stand trial. It was then that Lucien Leech-Larkin turned to help and understanding from the Jesuits, but he got neither. What he did get was a series of terse legal letters.

LUCIEN LEECH-LARKIN: The attitude that they indicated to me was just one of callousness. They were just totally callous about the situation and they apparently had no intention of offering me any form of reconciliation.

DAVID HARDAKER: Lucien Leech-Larkin's story was aired on the ABC's 7:30 Report last week. The new head of the Jesuits, Father Mark Raper had declined to be interviewed at the time, but he watched it go to air and he was shocked.

MARK RAPER: I was moved by Lucien Leech-Larkin, and also for me it was a moment of liberation I must say, because I'd been accepting advice against my better judgement.

DAVID HARDAKER: Lucien Leech-Larkin had been forced to take the Jesuits to the courts for compensation, but after eighteen months, it's barely moved. Now Father Mark Raper has had an extraordinary re-think on how the Church handles those who sue for compensation, making him the most senior Catholic leader to blow the whistle on church tactics.

MARK RAPER: The tactic has been if one comes to us with a legal attack, we give a legal defence. That's been the tactic. And that's clear legal defence – is to attempt to fight this matter at every point, if I understand it, to attempt to block it until the point that either the complainant gives up from exhaustion or that we win the case or that we lose it.

DAVID HARDAKER: So do you as the provincial endorse that approach?

MARK RAPER: No, not now. I have for six months, while our protocol has been reviewed, but I am not at all content with that approach at all.

DAVID HARDAKER: But what if your approach means the Jesuits might be taken to the cleaners in a financial sense?

MARK RAPER: This is the issue, isn't it? And this is the risk that is presented to me and this is, you could say, one of the strong arguments that were put to me, but as is evident from me talking to you now, I'm taking another approach.

DAVID HARDAKER: Do you think you'll get backing for that? What if the Church's assets come under threat?

MARK RAPER: Well, the assets are not as important as the people that we seek to serve. What is the point of doing what we're doing if that's not the case?

DAVID HARDAKER: After a 35-year wait, Lucien Leech-Larkin has now received his letter of apology from the Jesuits, but he's been burned before and now he's waiting to see if this time, the Jesuits deliver justice.

LUCIEN LEECH-LARKIN: I'm pleased that he's said that and I hope that will be the case. I hope that perhaps we can avoid a resumption of hostilities in the Supreme Court, but basically I'm there, I'm telling the truth and that's where I'm at.

MARK COLVIN: Sex abuse victim Lucien Leech-Larkin on that extraordinary change of heart of the Jesuits in Australia. He was talking to David Hardaker and you can hear and see more of David's story on tonight's edition of the 7:30 Report on ABC television.